Every year, the IRS releases stats on the share of total income tax revenue that comes from the top 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%, and 50% of earners. Here is the batch from the IRS website up to the year 2005 (long after the Bush tax cuts were passed).
The relevant part is the section beginning at line 154, titled "Total income tax share (percentage)." If you compare the year 2005 to the year 2000, just before Bush took office, you get these results:
1. The top 1% of income earners pay 39% of all federal income taxes - UP from 37% in 2000.
2. The top 5% pay 59% of all income taxes - UP from 56% in 2000.
3. The top 10% pay 70% of all income taxes - UP from 67% in 2000.
4. The top 25% pay 86% of all income taxes - UP from 84% in 2000.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
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Uhm, that's because their share of income increased. The direct income tax rate for the top bracket decreased 4% and the inheritance tax was drastically reduced; wealthy individuals were taxed less under Bush. The numbers that you are listing don't actually prove what you would like them to, just that the top 5% of the country pays a larger percentage of all taxes paid, not that their relative tax rate increased. As noted above, the reason is because their share of the national income increased EVEN MORE than their tax rate was reduced, leading to a larger percentage of revenue. You can make plenty of supply-side arguments for the tax cuts that are at least vaguely feasible, but trying to say that the rich paid more of their income in taxes under Bush is completely unsupportable by even a cursory review of the evidence.
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